The invisible expert: making your best people visible where the work is

Professional services firms have always been built on reputation.

For tax advisers, accountants and corporate finance professionals, relationships, referrals and technical expertise remain fundamental to winning work.

There is a challenge I increasingly see when working with firms, though. Some of their best people are almost invisible outside their existing networks.

They may be exceptional technically. Their clients know how good they are. They may have spent years developing genuine expertise in a particular sector. Yet the wider market may know very little about them.

At the same time, firms are asking those same people to build relationships, develop new business and become the next generation of rainmakers.

There is a disconnect.

Visibility is a commercial issue, not a social media one

When I talk about visibility with partners and senior advisers, I am not suggesting everybody needs to become a prolific LinkedIn user.

The question is more commercial. Do the people your firm needs to win work in the future have sufficient visibility in the markets where that work will come from?

For an accountant, that might be a partner with considerable experience in manufacturing. For a tax firm, an adviser building a reputation around transactions or succession. For a corporate finance boutique, someone who has completed several deals in pharmacy, retail or technology.

The expertise may already exist. The challenge is making sure the right market knows about it.

Where should your experts be visible?

Wherever the opportunities are, which is why sector strategy matters here.

If a corporate finance adviser has completed several pharmacy transactions and genuinely understands that market, describing themselves as a corporate finance specialist is not enough.

Look at the sector itself. Which publications do people in pharmacy read? Which industry organisations and groups matter? What conferences do they attend? Where are the opportunities to speak, contribute an article, join a panel or provide useful commentary?

The same principle applies to an accountant specialising in manufacturing or a tax adviser with considerable retail expertise.

LinkedIn is part of the picture, and only one channel. An article in a respected industry publication, involvement with an industry group or a speaking slot at the right sector conference can be considerably more valuable than another general social media post.

The objective is not to be visible everywhere. It is to be consistently visible in the places that matter to the market you want to develop.

Referrals still matter, and so does what happens next

A referral remains one of the most powerful ways of winning professional services work. A recommendation does not necessarily result in an immediate phone call, though.

People may encounter an adviser several times before anything happens. Someone recommends their name. Later, they see them speaking at an industry event. They come across an article they have written in a sector publication. They notice their commentary on LinkedIn. Then, when an opportunity eventually arises, the name is already familiar.

I have seen this in my own business, in a form that surprised me.

An approach came from a senior leader at an international firm. They had asked an AI research tool to identify people who work with professional services firms on partner visibility and LinkedIn. My name came back, along with two others.

What the tool had drawn on was interesting. Articles in professional publications. Conference platforms. Named commentary built up over several years. None of it had been created for that search. All of it was what the search relied on.

Search engines were relatively easy to ignore, because the results were generic and heavily influenced by paid placement. AI search is different. It is specific, it reads what has actually been published, and there is nothing to buy.

The same principle applies to an adviser developing a sector. One introduction or article is unlikely to establish someone as the go-to adviser in manufacturing, pharmacy or retail. Repeated, relevant visibility builds recognition over time.

Then, when somebody says "you should speak to her", the name is not entirely new. They have seen it before.

Start with the commercial opportunity

Visibility planning should begin with the firm's growth strategy rather than its marketing calendar.

Where does the firm see opportunity over the next three years? Which sectors are growing? Where does it already have strong credentials? Which partners and senior advisers have genuine expertise that could be developed into a stronger market position?

Once those questions are answered, visibility becomes much easier to plan.

If manufacturing represents an opportunity, identify the people with genuine manufacturing expertise and understand the associations, publications, events and networks that matter within that sector. If a corporate finance adviser has significant experience in healthcare, think about how that expertise can become more visible before the next mandate comes to market.

That is more purposeful than asking partners to post more often.

The expertise already exists

Most professional services firms do not need to manufacture more content.

Tax advisers are interpreting technical developments every day. Accountants see patterns across the businesses and industries they advise. Corporate finance professionals have transactions, sector knowledge and insight into changing buyer behaviour.

The challenge is capturing it.

Instead of asking a busy partner to write an article, talk to them. What are clients asking about? What has changed in their sector? What are they seeing repeatedly? What did their latest transaction tell them about the market?

A short conversation can uncover material for an article, a LinkedIn post, a conference contribution or an industry publication.

The professional remains the expert. Marketing makes that expertise easier for the market to see.

Think about the next generation

There is another reason to take visibility seriously, which is succession.

Many successful professional services firms have senior partners with extraordinary networks built over twenty or thirty years. Those relationships cannot simply be handed to the next generation.

If a director or recently appointed partner is expected to become an important business generator in three or five years, their market profile needs to start developing now.

Help them identify the sectors where they can genuinely become known. Give them opportunities to speak. Introduce them to relevant industry groups. Build relationships with sector publications. Put them into the rooms where the people they want to reach already gather.

Over time, familiarity and credibility build.

Make expertise visible where it matters

Professional services will always be a relationship business. Visibility does not replace relationships. It supports them, and it can make an existing referral considerably more powerful.

The question for firms is not simply whether their people are visible. It is whether the right people are visible, for the right expertise, in the sectors where the firm wants to grow.

The opportunity is not to make professionals louder. It is to make sure genuine expertise is visible where it matters.